Professor Elaine Petro of University of Minnesota

Biography:

Elaine Petro is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at
Cornell University and director of ASTRAlab, a research lab focused on sustainable space propulsion and
exploration architectures. Elaine completed her Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, in the Space Power
and Propulsion Laboratory, studying water plasma chemistry. She spent several years in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics as a visiting student and post-doctoral researcher, studying electrospray thruster technology for small satellite platforms. For her work on electrospray model development, Petro received the 2023 AFOSR Young Investigator Program award. was named an ARCS Scholar,
National Science Foundation and Amelia Earhart fellow, and was recognized as one of Aviation Week &
Space Technology’s Twenty20s emerging leaders in aerospace in 2016. Prior to graduate studies at UMD,
Petro worked on the MAVEN Mars Orbiter, and James Webb Space Telescope, and Hubble Space Telescope missions at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Elaine is passionate about diversity and inclusion
in STEM and is a founding member of the national Women of Aeronautics and Astronautics organization.